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Martin Mere & Marshside - 14th February 2010

With Reece's rugby match having being cancelled we headed out to Martin Mere and then up to Marshside to hopefully get some photo's of the Short-eared Owls.

ABOVE DRAKE TEAL BELOW WIGEON

First stop as usual was the Ron Barker hide with c150 Wigeon, c100 Teal, c50 Shellduck, Whooper Swan, Greylag and Pinkfooted Geese. Curlew and Lapwing were the only waders, 3 Buzzard the only raptors and Grey Heron, Black-Headed Gull and 10 Woodpigeon almost rounding up the sightings.

ABOVE AND BELOW 1st WINTER BLACK-HEADED GULL

I say almost because as we watched 2 Greater Black-backed Gulls took several 'bombing runs' over the feeding Teal and Wigeon in hope of an easy meal.

ABOVE GREYLAG BELOW WIGEON TAKING FLIGHT

From the Rains hide we added Pochard, Goldeneye, Tufted Duck, Cormorant and Ruff.On the walk between hides the usual woodland birds were showing and the Water Rail was reported from the Harrier hide though we didn't see it on our brief stop.At Marshside we headed for the Sandgrounder hide before taking a walk down Marine Drive.

We picked out 4 Snipe one of Reeces favourite birds and also had good views of a female Merlin though it was to far out to get any photographs.

ABOVE AND BELOW SNIPE

Teal, Shellduck, 7 Grey Heron, Lapwing, Canada Geese, 3 Kestrel (currently on the amber list of dinimishing species), and 5 Little Egret could be seen from the hide and across the saltmarsh. Gulls included Black-headed, Greater Black-backed, Lesser Black-backed and Herring. Short-eared Owls eventualy started to show with a total count of 3 but just a little out of range for either of the cameras, the 2 shown were taken with the Lumix. We also spent five minutes watching a Stoat hunting in the grass by the pavement.